Chapter 344 – Work
"So you're back early. Guess it didn't go well," Frank said when he saw Fiona and Jimmy come home.
"That wasn't a job for human beings," Jimmy muttered before storming into the bathroom. He showered for ages, scrubbing himself like he was trying to peel off a layer of skin. When he finally came out, he grabbed a beer from the fridge.
"He really couldn't handle it," Fiona said.
Compared to Jimmy's miserable state, Fiona actually looked… energized.
Back when she was holding the family together, she used to juggle multiple jobs a day, constantly wondering when that kind of life would finally end.
Now that the family wasn't struggling financially anymore, she hadn't worked in a while. But going back out today—doing something dirty, exhausting, and brutally physical—strangely stirred something nostalgic in her.
"I'll call around and see if there's something else," she said, pulling out her phone.
"Wait," Jimmy quickly cut in. "I'll find something myself. You don't have to look for me."
He'd learned his lesson.
"Alright," Fiona replied, barely suppressing a smile.
---
It was worth noting that Castle had followed them the entire time. His eyes never left Jimmy—not even at the slaughterhouse.
In that nauseating, rotting stench, Castle's expression hadn't changed once.
---
That very afternoon, Jimmy found a job at lightning speed.
No more nitpicking. No more "this job's beneath me" or "that one's too tiring."
He chose to work at a coffee shop.
Making coffee was infinitely cleaner—and more respectable—than scooping sludge out of a slaughterhouse wastewater pit.
The pay wasn't as high, of course. Dirty, backbreaking jobs usually paid more. But Jimmy didn't care anymore.
This time, Fiona didn't go with him. Jimmy went alone.
He didn't come home until nightfall.
"How was it?" Frank asked.
"No issues. He stayed at the café the whole time," Castle reported succinctly.
Jimmy hadn't run.
He'd completed a full day of work.
"Completed" might've been generous, though.
He'd never worked at a coffee shop before. The place was constantly busy. Customers lined up endlessly. He fumbled through orders, hands moving too slowly, mind racing to keep up.
And customers had demands.
Extra foam. No foam. Oat milk. Half sugar. No sugar. Double shot. Extra hot. Light ice. Soy instead of almond. Five different modifications for a single cup.
Jimmy couldn't remember half of it.
He kept getting orders wrong.
He got scolded. Snapped at. Talked down to.
But customer service meant swallowing it.
Under normal circumstances, Jimmy would've walked out—or worse, thrown the coffee in some entitled jerk's face.
But after yesterday's slaughterhouse nightmare, his tolerance had increased dramatically.
Compared to maggots and cockroaches crawling under his clothes, rude customers were almost manageable.
He endured.
And he finished the day.
---
The slaughterhouse job had been deliberate.
Fiona had done it on purpose.
Living and sleeping beside Jimmy every day, she understood him even better than Frank did.
She'd known perfectly well that a "pampered" guy like him would never survive that kind of filthy work. Just as she predicted, he'd quit almost immediately.
But because that job had been so awful, the coffee shop suddenly felt tolerable.
It was a psychological trick.
Set the bar high—painfully high—then lower it.
If someone refuses to lend you ten thousand, they're much more likely to lend you two hundred.
Raise expectations first, then bring them down.
Jimmy had been nudged, not forced.
---
"Dad, that guy you hired to watch Jimmy… was he in the military?" Ian suddenly asked.
"Hm? Yeah. I heard he was a Marine," Frank replied.
"Seriously?" Ian's eyes lit up.
Frank knew exactly why Ian was asking.
Ian had always dreamed of enlisting—of becoming a soldier, serving the country.
And a real Marine, standing guard outside their house like a silent shadow?
To Ian, that was something close to heroic.
Ian admired soldiers more than anything.
And Castle wasn't just any soldier—he'd served in the U.S. Marine Corps. That was an elite unit. The kind of force soldiers themselves respected.
Letting Ian talk to Castle and learn what the military was really like might not be a bad idea.
It might even make him reconsider.
Frank had spoken with Castle several times, asked about his past, about his time in the military.
But Castle rarely talked about it.
He clearly didn't want to revisit those memories. Something bad had happened—something heavy enough that even a man like him preferred silence.
Frank always said he supported Ian's dream of joining the military.
But in truth?
He didn't want Ian to enlist.
Unless a family had a strong military tradition, what parent genuinely wanted their child to go to war?
Especially in the United States.
The national circumstances here were nothing like those of certain Eastern countries.
In some Eastern nations, joining the military often meant training in camps, being stationed somewhere, enduring hardship and discipline—but rarely facing real combat. Most soldiers never saw an actual battlefield. Many only ever fired at paper targets.
Some even finished their entire service barely touching a rifle.
So for many parents there, sending a kid into the military could mean "letting them toughen up." Teaching discipline. Especially for kids who didn't like school—let them suffer a bit, and they'd realize studying wasn't so bad.
But that was training.
Not war.
If those same parents were told their child would be thrown into live fire, missile strikes, artillery barrages—how many would still volunteer them?
With modern birth policies, many families had only one child. Years of money, time, and sacrifice poured into raising that one life.
Children weren't called "four-legged money-eating beasts" for nothing.
If that one child died on a battlefield—what would happen to the parents? To the grandparents?
Was a medal worth that?
Of course, passionate young people who chose to defend their country—who risked everything out of conviction—deserved respect. Without such people, nations wouldn't remain safe or stable.
But parents are selfish when it comes to their children.
Especially when there's only one.
That instinct is carved into bone.
No one wants their bloodline to end.
And America?
America deployed.
It intervened. It sent troops abroad—especially to the Middle East.
Joining the military here meant real combat. Real bullets. Real killing.
There were countless films and documentaries about war zones—stories of soldiers forced to aim rifles at armed children, of women exploiting sympathy by strapping bombs to their bodies.
And after coming home?
So many veterans suffered from severe PTSD, unable to live normal lives again.
These weren't abstract stories. They happened every day, to real people.
And the government's treatment of many veterans?
Frank could only describe it as… disappointing.
Like tools discarded once they were no longer useful.
Even graduates of military academies—future officers—were often sent into active combat zones. Whether for "experience" or political necessity, they still faced real danger.
If luck ran out?
Death came just as quickly for them as for anyone else.